TAKING in the scale of the floods only really becomes possible from a bridge, and in the memory of my 98-year-old grandmother.
From the bridge, there is water in every direction, while my grandmother says she has never seen water like this before.
That's an indication the floods are not just once in a generation, but once in a century in terms of impact. Reports say the death toll has risen to 32, and it is easy to see why.
In places, the currents are fast-flowing and deeper than an adult is tall.
We can't get through to the heart of Korat City, the gateway between Bangkok and Isarn. Thousands of rai are underwater. We come across children, exhausted, sleeping by the roadside at a point where the water cannot reach.
The rain has been falling and the water has been rising for five days. Locals say there is no reason why the water will not keep rising for five more days.
There are at least 50 families still isolated by the rising water around my family's farm. Saloon cars cannot penetrate very far, so army trucks are the vehicle most people look to to get them through.
The rice that was to be harvested in November and December is probably doomed. That will bring extra pain for hundreds of families in the region.
The harvest will be replaced by heartbreak this year.
Phuket Bar Beer Puts Expat Pourer Out of WorkFrom the bridge, there is water in every direction, while my grandmother says she has never seen water like this before.
That's an indication the floods are not just once in a generation, but once in a century in terms of impact. Reports say the death toll has risen to 32, and it is easy to see why.
In places, the currents are fast-flowing and deeper than an adult is tall.
We can't get through to the heart of Korat City, the gateway between Bangkok and Isarn. Thousands of rai are underwater. We come across children, exhausted, sleeping by the roadside at a point where the water cannot reach.
The rain has been falling and the water has been rising for five days. Locals say there is no reason why the water will not keep rising for five more days.
There are at least 50 families still isolated by the rising water around my family's farm. Saloon cars cannot penetrate very far, so army trucks are the vehicle most people look to to get them through.
The rice that was to be harvested in November and December is probably doomed. That will bring extra pain for hundreds of families in the region.
The harvest will be replaced by heartbreak this year.
Latest Rhyming slang substitutes ''froth and bubble'' for trouble and so it proved for a young expat entrepreneur who poured a beer behind a bar and in so doing, erred.
Phuket Bar Beer Puts Expat Pourer Out of Work
Help! Phuket Rescue Team Tested: Photo Special
Photo Album Sunshine, surf and sea. A tourist ventures in, forgetting about the fourth ''S'' . . . safety. Before long, he is fighting for his life. Can this visitor be saved?
Help! Phuket Rescue Team Tested: Photo Special
UPDATE Phuket Street Protest: Deal Struck on Water Supply
Photo Album Residents in the southern Phuket village of Rawai were staging a protest today over lack of water at the right prices to meet local community needs.
UPDATE Phuket Street Protest: Deal Struck on Water Supply
Phang Nga Riding High on Scandinavian Influx
Phuket's neighboring province is looking forward to a strong high season, which means more visitors must be turning left at the airport intersection and casting their vote for nature.
Phang Nga Riding High on Scandinavian Influx
Phuket Resort Rooms Boom Unabated
Three More Patong Resorts Almost 1000 rooms will be added to Patong's resort stock along with almost 2500 condos and land plots near Phuket City under new development proposals.
Phuket Resort Rooms Boom Unabated
This is indeed a heartbreaking tragedy. News reports from the region are that the catastrophe was caused by folly, and it is likely to become an annual event which will only get worse every rainy season. Deforestation and unchecked development by "influential people", including the construction of a large stadium in a critical section of the floodplain, have apparently all played a part in the suffering.
Korat is on the rim of the Korat Plateau, and was never considered a flood-prone area as the water once washed down to the central valley below.
The frustrating part is that history has shown us that nothing is likely to change. There is, however, a philanthropist in Montenegro now bragging about how much he is donating to flood relief, and how this would never have happened if it were on his watch.
Posted by Treelover on October 23, 2010 18:32